Swami Vivekananda emphasizes the importance of strength, taking responsibility for one's own destiny, living for others, arising with conviction, and expressing one's inner divinity. He advises being strong in character and avoiding weakness, believing in oneself, helping others, working without attachments, and developing concentration of the mind.
2. First of all, our young men must be strong. Religion will come afterwards. Be strong, my young friends; that is my advice to you. You will be nearer to Heaven through football than through study of Gita.
3. “ Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, & know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want are within yourselves.”
4. “ This life is short, the vanities of the world are transient. They alone live who live for others, rest are more dead then alive”
8. “ All the power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that; don’t believe that you are weak. Stand up and express the divinity with in you”
9. “ What ever you think, that you will be. If you think yourself weak, weak you will be; if you think yourself strong; strong you will be”
10. “ Stand and die in your own strength; if there is any sin in the world, it is weakness; avoid all weakness, for weakness is sin, weakness is death”
11. “ Neither money pays, nor name pays, nor fame, nor learning; it is CHARACTER that cleave through adamantine walls of difference”
12. “ He is an atheist who does not believe in himself. The old religion said that he was an atheist who does not believe in God. The new religion says that he is an atheist who does not believe in himself”
14. “ Help if you can; if you cannot, fold your hands and stand by and see things go on. Do not injure, if you cannot render help”
15.
16. “ Are you unselfish? That is the question. If you are, you will be perfect without reading a single religious book, without going into a single church or temple.”
17. “ Misery comes through attachment, not through work. As soon as we identify ourselves with work we do, we feel miserable; but if we don’t identify ourselves with it, we do not feel that misery”
18. “ Nature wants us to react, to return blow for blow, cheating for cheating, lie for lie, to hit back with all our might, then it requires a super divine power not hit back, to keep control, to be unattached”
19. “ Always first learn to be a servant, and then you will be fit to be a master. Avoid this jealousy, and you will do great works that have yet to be done”
20. “ You must have an iron will if you would cross the ocean. You must be strong enough to pierce mountains”
21. “ Take up one idea, make that one idea your life, think of it, dream of it, live of it, let the brain, muscle, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way great spiritual giants are produced, others are mere talking machines”
22. He works best who works without any motive, neither for money, nor for fame, nor for anything else; and when a man can do that, he will be Buddha, and out of him will come the power to work in such a manner as will transform the world
23. The essence of education is concentration of mind, not collecting of facts. Develop the power of concentration of mind and detachment and then with a perfect instrument collect facts at will.
24. Come, be man, come out of your narrow holes and have a look abroad. See how nations are on the march . . . You will have to teach as well as to learn and you have plenty yet to teach to the world for centuries to come.
25. Love shall win the victory. Do you love your fellow-men? Where should you go to seek for God . . . Are not all the poor, the miserable the week, Gods? Why not worship them first?
26. “ Your country requires heroes; be heroes; your duty is to go on working, and then everything will follow of itself”
27. He works best who works without any motive, neither for money, nor for fame, nor for anything else; and when a man can do that, he will be Buddha, and out of him will come the power to work in such a manner as will transform the world
28. The essence of education is concentration of mind, not collecting of facts. Develop the power of concentration of mind and detachment and then with a perfect instrument collect facts at will.
29. Come, be man, come out of your narrow holes and have a look abroad. See how nations are on the march . . . You will have to teach as well as to learn and you have plenty yet to teach to the world for centuries to come.
30. Love shall win the victory. Do you love your fellow-men? Where should you go to seek for God . . . Are not all the poor, the miserable the week, Gods? Why not worship them first?
31. Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there; undigested, all your life. We must have life building man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas.